


my girl, linen and curls

by swallowedsong (bookstvnerdlove)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Summer Romance, implied red huntsman, scarlet beauty romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 17:18:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4530480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookstvnerdlove/pseuds/swallowedsong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she's only there for two weeks in the summer, but it's still enough for him to fall in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my girl, linen and curls

The ferry crosses the water and his friends may call him a lovestruck fool all they want, but  _she’s_  on this ferry and he’s not ashamed of the excitement that makes him feel. She’s only ever here two weeks out of the summer and they’re always the best two weeks of his life. She comes with her foster parents, closer to her age than his father is to him and Liam. It may be an odd arrangement, but there’s sometimes disarming about how open Mary Margaret and David are. How welcoming. 

It’s a far cry from his own home, what with Liam off in the Navy and his own father unsure how to actually be a parent. Oh, he has the basics covered, the food, the roof over his head. The bills are always paid and Killian only runs around barefoot because he  _wants_ to. Because it’s summertime. There are plenty of shoes and shirts lined neatly in his closet, ready for when the school year begins. But the rest? Old Captain Jones doesn’t know much about just  _being there._

So when Emma and Mary Margaret and David appear on their little island, two weeks every summer, opening the shades on the tiny gray beach shack at the end of dune road, as the locals always call it, he gets two weeks of family dinners and bonfires, and surfing with possibly the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. 

.

They’re eighteen this year and they’re both going to university in a month. He knows that much, but she still hasn’t told him where she’s going. Despite begging, pleading, cajoling over text, she’s held firm. She’d told him  _wait._ She’s sent him photos of herself with zippers imposed over her lips. She’s teasing him, and he’s not really sure how he feels about it. Sure, they’ve flirted with one another over the years, the way his arm has circled her shoulders as they sat on a piece of driftwood and watched the sunset. But she’s always stepped away afterwards, eyes downcast and throat working to swallow her feelings. 

.

When he sees her, wide brimmed hat and sunglasses, cutoff jean shorts riding high on her long, long legs, it all falls away. His heart skips a beat and he finds that he doesn’t care much about her secrecy because she’s  _here_  and she’s smiling at him the way she never smiles at his friends. 

She doesn’t race to greet him like other girls would do. No, Emma Swan stops in her tracks and lets a slow smile spread across her pink lips. (And  _god,_  are they extra pink and glossy this year or is that his mind playing tricks on him?) She whispers something to David and he smiles back at her, nodding, his hand cupping the back of her neck. 

He meets her halfway, because that’s how they always do it, but there’s something new in her eyes when she murmurs, “Hi.” 

All he can do is say, “Hi,” back with that goofy grin on his face.

. 

“I want to learn how to sail this year,” she tells him later, after they’ve stuffed their faces with fried clams from The Shack. 

It’s their annual tradition, the first night, the only night that her parents let her go off exploring by herself. She explained it one year, her third on the island, back when she was fifteen and a little less angry than she’d been the year before. How they’d gone to a family therapist and how they’d come to this arrangement. One night of complete independence and Emma would stop trying to run away. And how, in some way, it worked.  

He’d told her, months ago, how he had acquired an old sailboat and spent the spring months fixing it up. How Liam had, on his short leave, helped him, sailed with him. 

Been more of a father to him than theirs had ever been. 

. 

David tags along for their first lesson. 

At first it’s weird, teaching the older man what to do. It’s weird until it’s not, two hours later, when they hit a patch of rough water and the three of them work as a team, under his direction, until the ship sails smooth once again. 

He loves the feeling of being on the water, the wind whipping around his body, lifting his shirt, his hair, his eyes watering under his sunglasses. He loves the way it’s cold sometimes, a contrast to the hot sun. 

But most of all, he loves the way Emma’s hand brushes his as they pull on the rope together. 

He doesn’t even mind David’s discreet glance from his position on the other end. 

.

It’s Mary Margaret who asks him, though, how the lessons are going a week later. He’d wandered into the kitchen while she was making a salad for dinner and she’d pointed him towards a knife and cutting board. 

“Chop,” she’d ordered with a smile, like he was one of the third graders in her class back on the mainland. 

(He kind of loved it, though he’d never tell her so.) 

She nods as he tells her that Emma’s learning quickly, that she’ll soon surpass his skill. And even though it’s maybe an exaggeration, he can tell she appreciates it, the way her cheeks turn pink with pride. 

.

It’s later, after dinner, that he realizes that Emma still hasn’t told him where she’s going to school in the fall and an ache forms in his gut. 

.

A few days later, Will texts him to stop hogging Emma and orders them both to the beach for the afternoon. When he shows Emma the text, he’s surprised at how her nose wrinkles. 

“I thought you liked my friends?” He can’t help but sound injured at the idea that maybe she’s outgrowing them, leaving them all behind. 

When she tilts her head, she reads it all on his face, he can tell by the way her eyes narrow and she purses her lips. 

She doesn’t say anything, though, and his stomach sinks further. 

.

She smiles at the beach though, splashing in the water with Ruby and Belle, while he sneaks a beer or two with Will and Graham. She’d turned down one of her own with a shoulder shrug and a, “Mary Margaret will smell it on my breath.” 

There’s a flicker of regret and he wonders at it. Wonders at the things that happen during the year, the things in her life that she doesn’t share with him. It’s not like he told her about Milah two years ago. He’s not  _jealous_ , exactly, that she has a life that he knows not a lot about. But sometimes he wonders what it would be like. To see her everyday. To have her in his circle of friends. To make her laugh and smile for longer than just two weeks. 

He hears a hint of her conversation with Ruby, Belle having come back to the sand, her fingers tangling with Will’s as they lie back and close their eyes against the heat of the sun. He hears Ruby ask about Neal and he sees Emma shake her head. Emma changes the subject to college and he swears that she shoots a glance in his direction and blushes. 

But maybe he’s fooling himself. 

.

Their last day of vacation her parents let her go sailing with him all day. They begin in the morning with promises to be back by dinnertime. “And I expect you to be there, Killian,” David says with a mock-stern expression. 

He’d call it a perfect day, and it is, except for the fact that she’s leaving him tomorrow. They always get an early start on the road, given that she lives six hours away from their little island haven. But the winds are perfect and the sun is strong and she’s starting to get that tanned glow that she has after two weeks of summer. 

They don’t take it out too far and they anchor by the secluded cove that’s become his favorite place. 

“Come on,” he says as he strips down to his boxers and gesture to the water. 

And, of course, Emma being Emma, one ups him by stripping down and jumping in, tossing her briefs and her bra on the deck once she’s safely under water. He gulps, wanting it to be a sign, fearful that it’s just her way of calling his bluff, answering his dare. 

She used to be so easy to read. Now? Now, she’s as mysterious as a siren with her golden hair flowing behind her in the water as she disappears under the surface. 

.

“I’m sorry,” she says later after dinner. 

He’d been quiet all night, afraid to say much, to disrupt the balance of their perfect day. He’d let David and Mary Margaret fill the gaps of his silence all night, sipping the one glass of white wine that her parents had allowed them. (With promises to keep it all between the four of them.) 

After dinner, they’d built a fire on the beach and her parents were snuggled cloe to each other, eyes closed. 

He’d sensed Emma’s discomfort, over what, he could hardly fathom, it’s not like any of this was new. But he’d seen the way her legs fidgeted and the way she kept tucking her hair behind her ears, her mouth tightening and her jaw clenching. He’d watched until he couldn’t take it anymore and he’d said, “You look like you’re getting ready for a fight.”

She’d tossed an angry glare at him and stalked to the water. 

“Don’t go to far,” David had called and she’d waved an arm in acknowledgement. 

.

He had followed her, because that’s what he does.

.

When he catches up to her she’s immediately apologetic. He shrugs at her  _sorry_  and reaches out to her, his hand catching her fingers, then grasping, tightening. 

“You can tell me anything,” he says to her and he realizes that he means it. She can tell him that she’s leaving for the moon and it will make no difference. Because he realized this summer that he loves Emma Swan, and probably has for a while now. 

And if he loves her, that means he loves  _all of her._

Even this prickly side. 

He’s prepared himself to hear bad news since she’d told him that she’d decided on a school. So when she whispers, “I’m going to school with you” it takes a moment for the words to sink in. 

When they do, his hand slips from hers and he stops walking. She turns to face him, her features a mixture of fear and resignation. 

“This is what you were afraid to tell me?” He asks, incredulous. 

Because how could she not know? Just because he’d only allowed himself to think the words moments ago, hadn’t they been building to this for years? Hadn’t he shown her, year after year, that she could trust him? 

And so, maybe it won’t be perfect, he realizes as he takes a step towards her. Maybe they’ll fight a lot, but he swears to himself (and to her) that he’ll never give up on her. And he continues to walk towards her until his hands find hers and they stand chest to chest. And, fingers lacing together, he closes the space between their lips. 

When he pulls away, foreheads bumping, lingering, their bodies sway with the sound of the waves and he says, “That’s the best news ever.”


End file.
